Family Of Late RFE/RL Reporter Incommunicado

September 20, 2006 15:27 GMT

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Family Of Late RFE/RL Reporter Incommunicado

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Ogulsapar Muradova at the wedding party of her son, in 2004 (Courtesy Photo)
PRAGUE, September 20, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A U.S.-based nongovernmental organization says Turkmen authorities have are preventing the relatives of late RFE/RL's Turkmen Service correspondent Ogulsapar Muradova from communicating with the rest of the world.

Erika Dailey, who heads a Turkmenistan projected run by the Open Society Institute, told RFE/RL that the measures even apply to members of Muradova's extended family living far from the capital, Ashgabat.

Dailey said, "there has been no opportunity to communicate with [Muradova's] children since September 15, after which the authorities cut their phone lines -- and not only their phone lines, but the phone lines of the extended family, reaching as far as Dashoowuz and Nebit-Dag."

Her children were notified of her death on September 14.

Muradova died while serving a six-year prison sentence on charges rights groups have described as trumped up. Muradova was sentenced on August 25 after a closed trial that lasted just a few minutes.